Is the LORD's Power Limited?
Pentecost is the fulfillment of ancient promises! John even told us in our passage that the Spirit had not yet been sent because Christ had not yet been glorified. In Acts 2, however, with the God being glorified in Christ crucified, raised, and ascended, the prophesied and promised Spirit is shared among Jesus’ followers, filling them to overflowing.
Sermon: For What and Now What?
The ascension means that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, reigning and ruling over all of creation, filling all things, interceding and mediating on our behalf, inviting us to boldly approach the throne of grace, until he comes again in the fullness of time to consummate the kingdom he has already inaugurated.
The God Who Provides
Read through the lens of Jesus, Abraham’s story is a depiction of the eucharistic life. We may be missing bread and wine, but his journey by stages includes the other elements of the eucharist: praise, worship, sacrifice, covenant, and the unrelenting love of the Faithful One. The altars which Abraham builds are like lighthouses amidst a weary and wanting world stand as a reminder of God’s presence to light the way as a spiritual reference point. The eucharist is given to us as a lighthouse, as well, that we might find safe harbor. The one who is both priest-and-victim is ever with us. God is present in the highest of highs, the lowest of lows, and everywhere in between.
Behold and Beholding the Glory
Jesus doesn’t become glorious on the mountain. He has always been glorious, from before the beginning of time, from before the foundations of the world. In the Transfiguration, we find the veil being pulled back and Jesus is seen and revealed as he truly is!
Further Up, Further In: The Reprise
This isn’t a forgiveness story or reconciliation tale, however. It is a reinstitution, restoration, and redemption story. It is a reprise, a re-commissioning for ministry. As C.S. Lewis so masterfully describes it in The Last Battle of The Chronicles of Narnia: Jesus invites Peter to go further up, further in.
Sermon: I sonder as I wander
I sonder as I wander to the cross at calvary;I watch the faces in the crowd discover his blood for thee;Every life finds its meaning in the weight of his glor’y;I sonder as I wander to the cross at calvary.
God of Grace and God of Glory
The grace and glory of God are most fully revealed and embodied through Jesus in the cross as he bears the weight and punishment of our sins so we don’t have to! We had racked up a debt which we could not pay, but the Son poured himself out on the cross in our stead.
Losers Rule
Jesus took our sin and shame to the cross and he said, “It is finished.” You are forgiven. You are redeemed. There is no fine print or blackout date. It is finished. God has parted the red sea of your sin and brought you to a land flowing freely with forgiveness.
A Community of Character
Because Jesus’s heart overflows with mercy and abounds with grace, therefore we are enabled to bind up the broken, heal the sick, search for the strays, bring back the lost, and strengthen the weak. This is not a task built upon retribution but a process soaked in prayer, covered in the name of Jesus, and teeming with divine love.
Call and Response
Once God sees that Moses has turned aside and drawn closer, God calls out to him, calling him by name. God knew Moses before Moses ever knew God. You, my friends, were known by God before you ever knew him. God knows you intimately. He knows your deepest thoughts, your strongest fears, your most burning desires. He knows the number of hairs on your head, he knit you together in your mother’s womb. You are known by God and you will be known by God, world without end. Amen.
Hope (in the Resurrection) Changes Everything
Heavenly Father, this is your world. You are the source of all comfort, the author of all life, and the giver of all good things; you are both promise maker and promise keeper. We come before you with deep gratitude for giving us the spirit of adoption and making us joint heirs with Christ of your eternal kingdom. Bless this time, O Lord, and open your scriptures to us and us to your scriptures that we might know who you are, who we are, and whose we are. We ask this all in the name of our savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Word of the Kingdom
This kingdom is good news for the poor, the downtrodden, the neglected, the forgotten, the overlooked, the abused and misused, the unemployed and underemployed, the sin-sick, the heartsick, and the soul-sick. This kingdom is freedom, it is release, it is salvation, it is jubilee, it is abundant life in the here and now. This kingdom is the news that God’s reign and rule is here, that God has put on flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood, that God is both covenant maker and covenant keeper, and that God will trample down death with his own death, opening up to us the way of eternal, abundant life.
Here am I, Send Me!
This is not just any God. This is the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is the God who chose a man to become a nation, who fashioned a people from himself, who rescued them from Egypt, who led them as a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, who settled them into the Promised Land. This is the God who is both covenant maker and covenant keeper. This is the God who is seated upon the throne, reigning and ruling over creation. This is the “holy, holy, holy” whose glory fills the whole earth. This is the God before whom our only response can be, “Woe is me! I am lost! I am unclean! I am a ragamuffin!”
The God of Abraham Praise
God’s promises to Abraham are not given in a vacuum. These promises represent the outline of fulfillment to a promise God made in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. The first humans sinned but God promised salvation. There would be enmity between the woman’s offspring and the serpent, and there would be toil when working the ground and pain in childbirth…but God promised to set the world to rights. The promises to Abram in Genesis 12 are the beginning of that process!
A Burning Fire in my Bones
Friends, we cannot, we must not, we shall not remain silent about the vast and unrelenting love of Christ any longer! We aren’t called to comfort but to courage, not to platitudes but to proclamation, we have been called to discipleship.
"A Sermon a Day Keeps the Heresy Away"
In the last year I have taken to the adage, “A sermon a day keeps the heresy away.” I have committed to reading and/or listening to a sermon every day and it has paid dividends in my own preaching life. For the preacher, or for preaching student-practitioners, there is something particularly formative about reading a sermon manuscript or listening to a sermon preached.* When I see how someone else interacts with a difficult text or moves seamlessly from exegesis to application, or who has mastery over language, cadence, and tone it sets my heart on fire.
You’ll Never Walk Alone
The Trinity means that you are never alone. It means that you are never without promise, presence, or purpose. It means that you always have provision and protection, peace and power. It means that your response is always to be praise and proclamation.